A Gift For Baby

The wind tugged at her scarf as she made the turn onto the ranch roads. Ahead she saw the ranch house, a large, imposing building atop a gentle hill.

“Home sweet home,” she murmured to herself sardonically as she pulled up before the entryway. She jumped out of the car and turned to wave as the gray sedan came sliding into the yard. But before the men reached her, she’d opened the boot of her car and pulled out her packages and was starting up the steps into the house.

“With all due respect, you drive too darn fast, Miss Kingston,” one of them called to her.

She waved again, laughing, and took the steps two at a time. “Jen?” she called, knowing the house should be empty except for the household staff.

Dressed in the pale blue uniform all the house help wore, Jen came clattering down the stairs, ebony hair flying behind her. “Did you get it?” she cried, her dark eyes sparkling.

“Shh!” Hailey glanced at the back of the hall and put her finger to her lips. “Yes, I got it. Let’s go and try it on.”

Jen gave her a grin, snatched a couple of her bags from her and whirled. “Great,” she said, leading the way back up the stairs. “I can hardly wait to see the transformation.”

Hailey followed a bit more slowly. She had struck up something of a friendship with the younger woman who was working as a housekeeper’s assistant to pay her way through the nearby college. Together they had hatched a plot to get Hailey out of the house for an evening. The packages she’d picked up m town were the first step. The two of them made their way into the bedroom at the corner of the house and carefully closed the door.

“Here goes nothing,” Hailey breathed to herself as she pulled open one of her parcels, a round box, and extracted a dark wig styled in a pixieish cut, holding it up. “Me as an Italian. What do you think?”

“It’s darling,” Jen cried, fingering the silky hair. “But what are you going to do with all that blond stuff you’ve got on the top of your head?”

“You’ll see,” Hailey promised lightly, dropping down before her mirror and deftly pulling strands of her own hair into coils that she expertly pinned to her scalp. Taking the wig in both hands, she carefully tugged it down over the pinned tresses.

“Gosh.” Jen shook her head in awe. “Wow, that makes all the difference, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

Hailey nodded, looking at her reflection speculatively. “That’s the point, isn’t it?” she murmured. But it was true. Her thick, gorgeous blond hair had always been her trademark. With the black hair in a pixie cut, she looked like a completely different person. For just a moment, she wondered if it was going to make her act differently, too. “Wild?” she mused to herself. “Daring?”

“It’s going to be fun tonight,” Jen promised. “You’re sure you want to do it?”

“Absolutely.” Hailey smiled at her in the mirror, her eyes dancing with anticipation. “If I can get away from my everpresent shadows. They pride themselves on watching every move I make. It is getting really old.”

Jen nodded her sympathy. “We’ll fool them, don’t worry. I got a uniform for you. It’s hanging in your closet. It should fit.”

“Oh, thanks, Jen.” She smiled at the girl. “You’re really going to a lot of trouble just to help me get a night out.”

Jen smiled back warmly. “It’s my pleasure, believe me. Those two cops have been driving us all crazy, ordering us around like we were their servants or something. If we can put this over on Tweedledum and Tweedledummer, it’ll be worth every minute.”

Hailey laughed. “Okay. Here’s the game plan. At dinner, I’m going to whine and howl about the horrible headache I’ve suddenly come down with. And when I go up to bed, I’m going to warn everyone not to bother me until morning on pain of death.”

“Then you’ll slip into the wig and uniform and meet me in the kitchen at eight. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Jen started for the door, and Hailey called after her.

“Jen…thank you again. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” the younger woman said, laughing as she turned and left the room.

“No problem,” Hailey echoed, pulling off the wig and looking at herself in the mirror. Of course not. What could go wrong?

Two

With a long afternoon still stretching out before her, Hailey decided to get out her easel and do some sketching. Her pencil drawings were usually quick and small, done on a sketch pad. But this time she was in the mood for something grander, something huge and panoramic, just like this red and gold desert she’d been staring at for three weeks now. So she would need her easel.

It was old-fashioned and heavy, made of wood and hard to carry. She managed to get it into the back of her car by herself, and then, once she’d driven out and found an area she liked, managed to get it out of the car and set it up. But the thought of carrying the heavy easel, as well as all her painting and drawing supplies to the hill where she wanted to set up shop, was daunting.

She looked out toward where her faithful bodyguards had pulled over to keep an eye on her. They seldom got close, but they were always there, and it was darn annoying. She could call them to come help her, she supposed. But she didn’t want to do that. That would be similar to admitting she needed them around. And she would never admit that.

She glanced at the car again and saw that they were both getting out. Frowning, she was about to call to them, to protest, but they turned and began to walk toward the high side of the stream. They were moving away, not closer, and she sighed with relief as they melted into the brush and were soon lost from sight. They’d been on sketching expeditions with her before and they obviously expected a long, boring wait, so had hatched a plan with something better to do. She might almost be able to pretend they weren’t with her.

Turning back, she examined her surroundings with a practiced eye. The place was the greenest she’d found in the area. The stream running through it nourished a stand of cottonwoods at the base of the hill. The wind was ruffling the leaves, turning the light sides to shimmer in the afternoon sun, when she heard the hoofbeats. A rider was coming.

Leaving her things in a heap, she walked quickly back to the road, ready to hail whoever it might be. It was bound to be a worker on the ranch. Surely he would help her. Shading her eyes with her hand, she watched him approach.

Mitch pulled the horse to a stop easily and looked down at her. Even here in the middle of nowhere, with a bead of sweat rolling down her temple, she looked gorgeous. Her blond hair tumbled about her shoulders and framed her face the way an expensive fur might have. Her green eyes seemed to glitter in the sun, and her perfect skin was slightly flushed.

Everything in him was signaling danger, and he knew the best thing he could do was get out of this situation as quickly as possible. He wasn’t sure why she’d flagged him down, but whatever she wanted, he was going to have to avoid it. That meant he would have to be rude. But that didn’t really matter. He didn’t want to get closer to her, anyway. Being rude might be the best ploy he had going for him.

“Hi, you work here, don’t you?” she said with a friendly gesture. “I wonder, could you take a moment to help me, please? I’ve got some things I want to move, and it’s awkward trying to do it on my own, so if you—”

“Sorry, lady,” he said coolly, looking toward the horizon. “This is a working ranch. I work the cattle. I’m not trained in guest relations. Get somebody from the house to do it for you.”

Her chin went up and her gaze hardened perceptibly. His reaction was unexpected, but she wasn’t thrown by it. She’d dealt with recalcitrant personnel before.

For just a moment, she took his measure. His boots were scuffed and worn, and his jeans were snug and almost silver from wear. He certainly looked like a working cowboy. She glanced at his worn, callused hands and his broad shoulders. His face was tanned so dark, his blue eyes seemed startlingly bright. He looked authentic, all right. The only aspect that gave her pause—and she thought she’d noticed it on this man before—was the look in his eyes. There was something too sharp there, something too knowing. Still he claimed to be a cowboy, and a cowboy would suit her fine right now.

“I’m not asking you as an employee, or a house worker, or whatever,” she told him, waving a hand in the air. “I’m asking you as a person—one human being to another. Simple request. Nothing complicated.”

The determination in her voice was matched by the set of her jaw, and he noted it with something halfway between amusement and annoyance. She was used to ordering people around, wasn’t she? Well, that was just too bad. He glanced at his watch, making a show of it and starting to gather the reins together to make his escape. “I’m late. I’m due at the branding shed.”

Her eyes blazed. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of the bridle, effectively thwarting his plans to leave immediately. “I could write you a note,” she offered tartly. “You could take it to your foreman. Maybe then he would excuse your tardiness.”

He looked down at her and she glared back. “Will you please help me?” she asked crisply.

But he was just as stubborn. His jaw could set, too, and his eyes were even colder. “I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “I have other things to do.”

She gazed at him, not with anger but with speculation. There it was again, that element in him that looked untamed in a way that had nothing to do with sagebrush and desert winds. Something about this cowboy was annoying her, even beyond his refusal to jump down and help her. She realized now she’d seen him before, working around the corral, and even in town that morning. She’d noticed it then, too. There was a measure of contempt in that look he was giving her. Contempt. Now she was even more annoyed. How dare he? People just didn’t look at her that way. Especially men.

“Look,” she insisted. “I’m not asking you to spend the afternoon with me. I’m merely appealing for help in carrying my easel and supplies up to the top of that hill. I realize this sort of thing is far, far below punching cows, but think of it as charity work, and maybe it will make you feel saintly.”

His mouth twitched and his gaze made another arrogant sweep over her. “What makes you think I’m interested in feeling saintly?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She waved her hand airily. “Something about you suggests you might be able to use a few brownie points in heaven. I’ll bet you don’t rack up too many of them during your normal day, do you?”

For all his antipathy toward getting involved, he had to admit she was waging a pretty good fight here. “I try to avoid them,” he said dryly, but he didn’t pull away and urge the horse back onto the road as he should have. In fact, he was forgetting about his desire to move on for the moment.

“Obviously,” she taunted good-naturedly. “But this time, you see, you’re trapped.”

His head went back and he let out a short laugh. “The hell I am.”

She shrugged grandly. “Well, that’s right where I’m afraid you’re headed if you don’t get a few good works under your belt. So you see, I’m trying to do you a favor.” She gestured with a toss of her head, all supreme confidence. “Come on down and help.”

He met her eyes and stared for a long moment. He wasn’t about to change his overall opinion of her, but he had to admit there was more in her than he’d been giving her credit for. And he also knew they had come to a point where it would be churlish of him to continue refusing to help her. How had he let this happen? He was usually the one manipulating things. This time, she was going to win. Smiling ruefully to himself, he swung down off the horse.

“What do you want carried?” he asked her without rancor.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t been about to let him know how shaky her confidence had become in the past few minutes. Looking at him now, so tall, so thickly muscular, wearing faded jeans and a plaid shirt augmented by a leather vest, she knew he was all male and decidedly insolent. And here she was, ordering him around.

And here he was, giving in. My my. She allowed herself a quick feeling of satisfaction.

“This easel,” she told him, gesturing toward it. “I can actually carry the rest myself.”

He nodded, glancing at her face. To her credit, she didn’t gloat, but took his acquiescence as a matter of course and went on with things. “That won’t be a problem,” he said.

She was still weighing possibilities, her hands on her hips, her head to the side. “Maybe you could just prop it up on your horse.” She frowned at the large beast doubtfully.

Mitch patted his neck. “This big fella is skittish as it is. If I start piling wood on him, he’s liable to take it as a very bad sign.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “You’re probably right. Well, if you just took one side and I took the other…”

Without waiting for the rest of her musing, he lifted the easel without effort and hoisted it onto his wide shoulder. “Top of that hill?” he asked, nodding toward the area.

“Yes,” she said, hastily gathering her other things. “Thank you so much.”

But he was already striding toward the spot and she had to run to catch up by the time he reached it. He set the easel in place and was going to take her bundle of papers from her, but as she transferred the items, a small stack of drawings fell out and sailed haphazardly to the ground. Picking one of them up, he stopped, startled, staring at the cowboy face she’d drawn. Slowly he turned and stared at her, feeling like a man walking on quicksand.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked her softly, waving the picture at her. “That’s me.”

She glanced at it, not surprised at all. “Oh. Is it? Yes, I guess it is. I was just sketching some of the cowboys a week or so ago. I didn’t remember that you were one of them.”

He stared at her with steely eyes for a long moment, then handed the sketch back to her. “Don’t do it again,” he warned, his voice low but ominous.

She looked up at him, somewhat startled by his tone. “Why not?”

Yes, why not? He could hardly explain that he was an undercover agent, could he? That he didn’t want his cover blown. “It’s an invasion of privacy,” he said, evading the real issue. That made her laugh.

“Oh, come on. I was just sketching character studies. As far as I was concerned, you were just an ordinary cowboy, no more, no less. It was nothing personal.”

He didn’t relent, and actually, he had to admit, seeing the picture of himself had been downright disconcerting. It gave him an eerie feeling, as though something were going on here that he didn’t understand. And he hated not feeling in the know.

“Still,” he said, looking at her narrowly, “you reached out and took a piece of me and I didn’t even know it. Some Indian tribes used to think you captured someone’s soul when you had a picture of them.”

She waved that theory away dismissively. “That was photography.”

He shrugged. “Same difference.” His forefinger jabbed at the picture. “That’s me, and anyone looking at it is going to know it’s me.”

And that was just the problem. She was damn good, but he wasn’t about to tell her so. Opening the sketchbook he was holding, he riffled through others that were just as welldone.

“You see,” she said, watching him, “they’re just character studies. I mean, I don’t think of you as you, whoever that may be. I think of you as Joe Cowboy.”

He nodded, studying her work. “Sort of a generic brand,” he said softly.

“Exactly.”

Looking up, he pinned her with a sharp gaze as he snapped the book shut. “Sure, I understand that,” he said calmly. “That’s kind of the way I think of you.”

That startled her. She turned slowly, keeping her face bland. “Oh, really?”

“Sure.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re the generic rich girl.”

Her eyes widened and she laughed. “Hardly.”

Straightening, he handed her back her sketchbook. “Didn’t your father buy out the place so you could have it to yourself for a month?”

She opened her mouth to protest, but after all, what could she say? He was pretty near the mark. “You don’t know the first thing about it,” she said simply.

He shrugged, his hard face unemotional. “All I know is, they booted all the other guests out so you wouldn’t be disturbed. And you have two bodyguards. Now what kind of message do you think all that is sending?”

She stared at him for a moment, then turned and began to straighten the easel, preparing it for work. “My father used to say, if you want to send a message, call the telegraph people,” she murmured as she aligned the paper guides.

He knew he deserved that, and he almost smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he told her instead. “Now, if you’ve finished with me, boss-lady, I’ll get back to work.”

She turned her green gaze on him and shook her head in wonder. “You’ve got your nerve, mister,” she said. “It’s pretty obvious you’ve never been briefed in customer relations.” She tilted her head to the side, studying him. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll turn you in? That you might lose your job?”

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, ready to make his escape. “Miss Kingston,” he drawled, “there are things in this life I am afraid of. Losing this crummy job isn’t one of them.” He started to turn away, but said back over his shoulder, “And neither are you.”

“Then what are you afraid of?” she called after him. “I’d be interested in knowing.”

He paused, still looking back. “I’m more afraid of losing my self-respect than I am of losing this job,” he told her seriously.

She laughed softly. “What is your name, cowboy?”

He hesitated. “Mitch Harper,” he said at last, rather grudgingly. “Happy sketching, Miss Kingston.”

She smiled. “Happy branding, Mitch Harper. Be kind to those little dogies.”

For a moment he stood there looking at her, like an animal poised just before flight. The picture she made with her wild blond hair and the blue sky behind her made him want to stand and stare for a long, long time. But he controlled the impulse and moved on. That was what cowboys always did, wasn’t it? They moved on, moseyed on out of there. But he knew this little encounter had changed things. She wouldn’t ignore him the next time they met. The dynamics had changed. For some inexplicable reason, he began to whistle as he made his way back to where his horse was tied.

Hailey watched him go and shook her head. Then she turned to her easel and began to sketch rapidly, first the rough outline of a man, then the details, and before Mitch had disappeared from sight, she had a new picture of him. Standing back to examine it, she smiled. Then she tore off the sheet and quickly began drawing him from another angle, forgetting all about the landscape work she’d planned to do. Was she interested in his form because of something in him that had inspired her? Or was she merely happy to do something he’d expressly ordered her not to attempt? She wasn’t sure. Maybe a little of both. Whatever motivated her, she worked for hours, and when she was done, she had ten pictures of the man, and it made her smile to think of presenting them all to him, neatly tied in a satin bow.

“Later,” she promised herself as she packed up her charcoals and pencils. Right now, she had to begin preparing for the dance she was going to attend tonight.

Tonight. Ah, tonight. Maybe a little romance. Maybe… maybe just one.

Folding the easel and putting it under a bush for future use, she walked happily back through the grass. All in all, this had been one of the least boring days since she’d arrived, and with the evening ahead of her, it promised to keep right on going that way.

Mitch left the confines of the bunkhouse and wandered out under the stars. He could hear the raucous poker game going on behind him. Ordinarily he liked to join in. But tonight he was restless. Instead of heading toward the edge of the driveway, where he could look out over the valley in the moonlight, he turned toward the house. The place was lit up as though it were full of guests, as it usually was at this time of year. But there was only Hailey Kingston. Hailey and her bodyguards and a house full of help. It seemed like a waste.

He knew only sketchy details of the case. Her father was involved in a trial in San Francisco. As he understood it, the man had gangland ties that the district attorney’s office had been suspicious of for some time, and now he was paying for his misdeeds. Just what they were, Mitch wasn’t sure.

“He probably didn’t pay his taxes,” he muttered to himself as he sauntered along. That was the one crime the government could never forgive or overlook. At any rate, there was a lot of missing money involved, as well as some documents. The D. A. thought Hailey might have an idea where those things were hidden. And Mitch was here to see if she would inadvertently give a clue as to where they might be.

He’d had cases like this before, but they weren’t his favorite. He preferred going after the bad guys directly, not through some woman. Unless the woman herself was a bad guy, of course. Now those cases could be a lot of fun.

But this case wasn’t exactly topping the charts in the fun department. It was assignments like these that made him wonder why he’d ever gotten into this business, why he didn’t get out and go start up his own business somewhere.

But he wasn’t going to change, and he knew why. He hadn’t needed therapy to get to the bottom of his own motivations. It was clear as a bell to him. He knew it had to do with his background, with his father’s failures and his own experience of being raised as a rescuer, always pulling his family back from the brink of disaster. He just couldn’t stand to see the bad guys win. He had to make sure they met their just deserts. That was also the impetus that made him side with the underdog every time. Growing up, he’d been down so far, normal life looked like a climb up a heavenly stairway to him. He wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to good people if he could help it.

He glanced up at Hailey’s bedroom window as he neared the house. The light was on, but as he watched, the window went dark. She was already going to bed, it seemed. He’d heard from one of the dinner servers he’d struck up a casual relationship with that she’d gone to her room early with a bad headache. So that, it appeared, was that, at least for this evening.

He smiled when he thought about their encounter that afternoon. He had to admit, she had spirit. And the funny thing was, he had a feeling she was just as bored with this extended vacation in the country as he was.

“So do us both a favor and go home already,” he advised the darkened window. But he didn’t think she would take his advice.

Standing hidden in the shadow of the trees, he watched as Jen came out of the house by the back door and turned to call to someone else. Another of the staff joined her, a woman he hadn’t noticed before. She was pretty, with a fluid walk that turned his head. He whistled below his breath. How had he overlooked this one? That was something he was going to have to rectify.

But right now, he had other things on his mind and he hardly paid attention as the two women got into a small economy car and began to maneuver out of the tricky parking place. He could see through a side window that the two cops were playing cards in the game room. This might be an opportunity to gather more information. He looked back toward the parking area and saw that Jen and her fellow worker were driving off down the road. Starting toward the house, he mused over whether he would question the butler or strike up a conversation with the boy who did the dishes.

For just a moment, he thought about the night he’d climbed the brick chimney to gain access to Hailey’s bedroom while she was down eating dinner. He wasn’t supposed to do things like that—not officially, at any rate. But you could find out things by looking through the possessions of people under surveillance that you couldn’t find out any other way, and he’d been getting antsy. What he’d seen had surprised him. She had lots of quality clothing, but nothing fancy, no fur coats, no diamonds. Expensive things, the sort that were made to last, but not to be showy. Good, basic clothing. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was a woman of uncommon class. And she certainly had the body to wear anything and make it look good. But it was also obvious she came from money.